Neither Beauty Nor Grace
by chibikaty
Summary: Johanna Mason won the Hunger Games by playing stupid until she turned out to be the most vicious killer of them all. Or at least that's what the Capitol would have you believe.


**Neither Beauty Nor Grace**

* * *

><p>Disclaimer: I wish I was Suzanne Collins. In reality, however, that is someone else.<p>

* * *

><p>Summary: Johanna Mason won the Hunger Games by playing stupid until she turned out to be the most vicious killer of them all. Or at least that's what the Capitol would have you believe.<p>

* * *

><p>X<p>

Johanna Mason was orphaned at age thirteen—a fire killed her mother, grandmother, and younger brother. Her father was long dead from an accident at the lumber mill. Neither of her parents had any surviving siblings. She was at an awkward age to be orphaned: too old to be cute, too young to work at the mill. Perhaps another girl would have gone to a friend's house, but Johanna was that girl who sat all alone at lunch reading a book. She had no friends.

Nothing really changed after her family died, except that she was a little bit wetter without a roof. She kept living in the burnt carcass of their house, and no one tried to stop her (or help her). Without her grandmother there was no longer money from mending clothes, but without her little brother she no longer had to share what food she scavenged from the nearby forest, so she was about the same amount of hungry as she'd been before. As for loneliness, well, she stole a few more books than she used to.

Stealing books was her only luxury. Johanna Mason had a plan. She'd been the best student in her class since first grade because from day one she studied the hardest. Not from parental pressure—her alcoholic mother could have cared less about her grades—but because her father had demonstrated to her that mill workers were cannon fodder, and her mother had demonstrated to her that a woman needed to be able to take care of herself. She had her eye on a position as bookkeeper at the mill, which brought better income than most local jobs and wasn't dangerous. The best anyone born in District 7could expect if they weren't lucky enough to inherit a store. (Her grandmother patted her head and told her if she didn't succeed could always find a nice boy to marry. She wondered at the older woman's confidence in that, given that she'd barely spoken to a boy in her entire life. She looks in the mirror, and the face that stares back at her has coarse hair, eyes a little too far apart, and red spots. She has no illusions about what she has to offer anyone.)

At sixteen, she had no money for textbooks and no friends to borrow from. She was still clinging to her top spot out of sheer effort; unlike her peers there was nothing else to fill her time. She kept her head down and tried not to be noticed. It took her a month to work up the courage to ask the town's bookkeeper if she could come by his office to tidy and help him with whatever he needed, in exchange for a few lessons with the books. When he agreed, she felt the happiest she'd been since she lost her family.

The first time they were alone, he groped her chest and she tried not to cry. Later, she did cry into her soggy blanket and vowed that she'd never go back, she'd run away into the forest. Come the cold light of day, she assessed that her options for survival and decided that the bookkeeper was a lazy slob who would probably go no further, and it would ruin all her future plans if she tried to stand up to him. Maybe a girl who smiled and teased him could even have turned it to her advantage, but the best Johanna could manage was no punching and no crying. She kept her eyes on the ground and her heart strong, and counted the days.

That was the year she was reaped.

It was like all other sounds stopped when her name was called. All she could think was that if she'd known this was going to happen, she wouldn't have worked so hard on her plan. Hands on her butt and her breasts every day and her first kiss, now given up for nothing. As she stumbled to the stage, it seemed to her that all the faces around her were filled with relief. "At least it isn't someone we know," they would all be telling each other. If you had to pick someone to sacrifice to the reaping, it would probably be Johanna Mason, who was an orphan but not the cute kind, who took up no noticeable space in anyone's life, and who never smiled.

On the stage, she began to cry. It was the first time she'd cried in public since she was an infant. It won her no sympathy, only a vague sense of discomfort from the audience. She vowed this would be the last time let anyone see her cry.

They all tried to coach her, her stylist, her escort, and especially her mentor. Smile at the audience, Johanna. No, not like that, you look like you're in pain. Not like you want to kill someone, either! Walk gracefully, don't look at the ground. Don't chew your hair, you're ruining it! Try to straighten your back. Tell us what you think of the Capitol. Don't mumble, it almost sounded like you said, "serial killers in silk snuggies."

She flubbed the interview. Caesar tried to coax an interesting response out of her, but she was torn between saying "to hell with it, I'll tell these sickos exactly what I think of them" and trying to cast some kind of interesting persona over herself in a desperate attempt to survive. In the end she doesn't manage either.

The weapons practice, she skips in favor of survival training. Memorizing is her only talent (she had to memorize the teachers' lectures because she couldn't afford a notebook) and in any case just looking at those sharp spears makes her imagine what one would be like in her gut. The thought of it in someone else's gut is almost as bad. Her mentor is giving the boy from her district one-on-one training, but tries not to let her find out. He needn't have bothered to cover it up: Johanna already understands that there will be no sponsors for her. Even she can see that she's a bad bet.

She gets a three. This is pretty much the lowest score the Gamemasters give out, ever. The boy from 7 got an eight, generating some excitement since he's not from a career district. She has avoided getting to know him so well that she's not even sure what his talent is, besides looking muscular. She just recited non-poisonous plants she had memorized.

Her plan, if it can be called a plan, is to try to hide and hope for a poorly-planned terrain that kills everyone else. She can't even imagine fighting, murdering, of her own violation. Making allies also scares her (she wouldn't know how to even begin). She expects to die a boring, unwatched death while Caesar Flickerman makes hilarious commentary.

The only reason she wins the hunger games is because she breaks her leg.

One bad misstep, on the very first morning as she flees empty-handed from the Cornucopia. And she falls off the edge of a ledge. She is about to cry when she sees the damage, her ankle twisted at the wrong angle and blood oozing out from where she hit the rock, but she reminds herself that everywhere in the arena is in public, so she bites it back and tries to find a decent-sized stick to hobble on.

Her hours spent practicing walking quietly are wasted as she staggers through the brush like an elephant. When she spots a clump of berries, she can't remember if they're poisonous or not. She would have stayed away from the river because it was too loud not to be a set-up and surely others have heard it. But now she's half out of her mind with pain and the flow of cold water is too too tempting.

By the river is one of the careers, the boy from district one. He's been sitting very still as she blundered forward, waiting. As soon as she sees him she tries to run. She doesn't get very far.

A blow strikes her on the back and she goes tumbling down. Rough hands roll her over. He has a silver axe and she's thrashing wildly, like an animal in a trap knowing it's doomed. But it's not the blade but the wooden handle that he brings down on her stomach, then again on her head.

The wind is knocked out of her and her vision is blurred. She feels rather than sees him start to unbutton her pants.

His only mistake is that he stays in a little too long, long enough for some of the feeling to start coming back to her limbs. The axe is on the ground next to them. She grabs it.

She returns to awareness upright on her knees, the axe still raised over her head, her throat hoarse with screaming. The body in front of here was probably dead with the first blow, but has been struck many times since.

Her face is wet, which means her vow is broken already. She curls up in a ball and cries.

_Caesar tells the audience, "And there was an excellent example of a seduction technique. Lure the boys in and make them drop their weapons. A surprise upset already, who knows what will happen next?"_

What wakes her is the sound of a twig snapping. She tries to push upright but her ankle is a mass of flaming pain. It's gotten dark and not only can she not see straight, she can't think straight.

"Who's there?" she screams.

There is no response. She grabs the axe and waves it. "Don't come near me! I'm telling you not to come near me!"

Another rustling noise, this one closer. Howling, she throws the axe with all her strength. This really is all her strength—she falls over backwards.

There is a thud. A gurgle. She crawls over on her knees. In the dim remains of daylight, she makes out a girl with blond curls lying on the ground. A girl. So she didn't need to attack. Or rather she did—she's forgetting where she is and why. She was supposed to memorize every tribute, but she's terrible with people and it's dark and she doesn't know which one this. She manages to wrench the axe lose from the wound in the girl's throat. A lucky shot. She should be dead now: the girl had a sword.

A part of her just wants to fall over and close her eyes. Another part of her is screaming at her to get out of there. Grab the career's pack, it has the best stuff. Wash some of the blood off so you don't leave a trail. Get away from this scene, get away from the rest of the careers, do it now now now.

She uses the axe as a walking stick.

Eventually she collapses. After who knows how long, she wakes to water rushing again. She'd meant to get away from the river but right now she's too thirsty to care. She drags herself over to the stream on her elbows, whimpering as every new movement jolts her ankle.

There is food in the backpack, some bread and cheese. She rifles through the pack, looking for medicine, or some sort of set-a-bone-yourself kit. She finds bandages (little good that does) and a bottle of painkillers. She tells herself she can't afford to take them, they'll make her muzzy-headed.

Five minutes later she takes two pills. An hour later she takes four more.

When she hears the noise of someone coming, she's not sure if it's real or in her head, but she panics. She flees into the stream, tries to bury her head underwater. Like a security blanket, she drags the axe in with her.

She can't swim. She always pictured being able to hold her breath for only thirty seconds or so. But now she is too afraid to resurface, and the seconds trickle into a minute. She counts in her head, one mizzippi, two mizzippi, like her little brother used to, even though no one knows what a mizzippi is anymore.

When a leg appears next to her in the water, she hacks at it.

She loses her grip on the axe, and lunges after it, swallowing a little water. The world fades and goes shiny.

"_A clever use of fear and psychological tactics. She's outnumbered, so she convinces the pack there is something in the water, a predator. But has she drowned? No, wait, she's floating to the surface."_

She sits hunched over by the water. The bread is gone but her stomach doesn't bother her. Her ankle hurts too much for that. It oozes yellow puss. Possibly she should cut her foot off to survive but she can't lift the axe. Possibly she should put down the axe until her strength comes back, but she can't pry her fingers lose.

There are flames. There is the sound of shouting. She doesn't move. The fire is lapping at her toes when the helicopter lands.

She is the victor. Apparently.

They put her ankle in a cast, and use that as an excuse to cart her around in a fancy chair when she refuses to walk. They tell her what to say. She is doing pretty well until she starts actually watching the clips of the games they are showing.

Since she did not give them a decent story, they made their own, casting her as the sly trickster who made everyone underestimate her. The Capitol prefers to believe the district children kill each other out of barbarianism, so her entire mental breakdown is edited out. They turn the part where she hacked at a corpse for five minutes into a fifteen minute long torture session. It took some creative use of the footage to make it look like she tripped the last contestant, the girl from distract six, into the fire, when all she did was sit there like a zombie.

They dub over the rest of what she says in response. The excuse is "excessive use of profanity."

Her mentor takes her aside and tells her, the Capitol doesn't like to let a crazy person win. They wanted the fire to kill her, but someone made a mistake and the boy from two and the girl from two chased the girl from six into the forest fire, then they both managed to kill each other, and the girl from six was burned to death a little before Johanna. That only left her and Capitol always has to have its victor. But they don't have to have a victor permanently so she'd better shape up.

She shapes up. A few minor setbacks aside, she's pretty good at survival. The Capitol eats her up as a villain the way they never would have as a hero, this plain girl with no fashion sense who doesn't filter her thoughts before speaking and can't bring herself to pretend to like them.

The first test comes when President Snow makes one of his "special" visits to her house. She's concerned this is about her failed interview, even if that was three months ago. But that's not it: it turns out that even an ugly sixteen-year-old with pimples is worth some of the Capitol's precious money once she is a winner of the Hunger Games.

He hands her a letter. She will accept the invitation to a "private party" or someone she loves will die. She does not show up. A few days later, the bookkeeper who she worked for dies in a failed robbery. She is tempted to send Snow a thank-you note, but she has too much intelligence (cowardice) to do that.

The second test comes when mentoring her first batch of tributes. Another invitation, a subtle reminder of how much power the Capitol has over the outcome of the games. (The outcome of her game was random, but at least half of them are rigged, and nary a game passes without the Gamemaster deliberately killing off at least one tribute. She knows now that her strategy of hiding and waiting out the killing would never have worked—no one is allowed to win who hasn't killed at least once. They usually don't like complete psychopaths either, but there is no crime in the Capitol greater than being boring.)

She does not take the bait. The tributes from seven die on the first day with no sponsors, and that is probably her fault. But if she gives in, then every tribute after them will also be toyed with by Snow's games. Besides, to help one tribute survive is to help kill the other twenty-three. So what if her district will get extra food for producing a victor? They never liked her anyway.

They pretend to like her now that she is the winner, but no one really idolizes a girl who is widely known to have lied and backstabbed her way to victory. So what? She's used to being the unfavorite. A district full of people who don't like her is a district that Snow can't use against her. (And they're better off without her.)

There are advantages to being a victor. She's not hungry anymore and she has all the books she can read. After a few awful evenings of gritting her teeth listening to stupid arrogant people from the Capitol, she starts learning how to nod and smile without listening. Her smile still looks like a grimace.

She can allow herself to become friendly with Finnick. He's far more valuable than her so it's more likely she'd be used as a hostage for him than the other way around. And he has too many other people to be used against him for her to make a difference. She would feel sorry for him, except that she understands that pity is not a kindness. And at least he has one person in the world who loves him, so perhaps she's the one _he_ should feel sorry for.

Haymitch is a drunk and a boor and the type who would use a book for toilet paper. But they share a bond on the grounds that they are both the ones who have nothing left to be used against them, so sometimes they get together late at night in an isolated room and throw around trash talk about the Capitol. One night she gets drunk herself and paints a pink polka dot dress over a photo of President Snow. She hangs onto it long enough to show to Finnick before she has to burn it.

Haymitch brings up the topic of a rebellion once, a late night when he's had too much to drink or wants her to think he has. But she pretends not to be paying attention. Haymitch is a fool: he can't save any of his tributes, can't even pull himself away from the bottle for a day, and he thinks he can take on the Capitol. Forget it. Maybe when life completely stops being worth living she'll give him a call.

She hangs on. She's a survivor.

Then, during the 71th Hunger Games, a twelve year old paraplegic deaf girl from District Eight is chosen.

One of those would be bad enough, Johanna thinks. But to be twelve AND mute AND crippled AND a girl seems a little excessive. The champions gather around in the back of a room and talk about it in whispers, can't anything be done? Johanna heard from Mags that the Capitol went back to the district a second time looking for someone to volunteer, an unprecedented move. But no one did. It turns out that her family had been using her to draw tesserae in massive quantities, not just for themselves but to sell to other families—apparently they'd found a creative way to turn their worthless daughter into an asset. The Capitol may have to pass a new rule to keep this from catching on. In the meantime, they film her sitting down only and avoid a direct shot of her mouth since someone else is speaking for her.

It's a pity about the _barbaric_ behavior of the districts, but nothing can be done, or so the Capitol tells them.

A career from two kills the girl seconds after the bell sounds—he heads straight for her. She never even has a chance to move, so no one in the audience ever sees that she can't walk. It is a brief death, no drama and no prolonged suffering, and soon overshadowed by the usual bloodbath on the first day. The career receives a package with a spear, shield, and medicine from an anonymous sponsor.

They are editing the footage in another way, Johanna realizes. Just like they once edited around the boy from district one raping her. Making sure that what the audience sees is bad, sure, but bad in the _right way_, in the exciting way, not the stomach-turning mind-screwing way. They will always do this, will always maintain control over the districts by giving them just the right mixture of hope and fear, and maintain control over their own citizens by ensuring they are never shaken out of their narrow little worlds. The Hunger Games are really just an elaborate form of solitaire and the Capitol is always the winner.

And the first fires of rebellion stir in Johanna Mason's heart.


End file.
